I arrived in New York in 1993, a widow unable to provide for four kids. Things in my home country of Honduras were very dark and desperate. I was always behind on bills because, when I had work, I was often paid late if at all. Here, the $4.50 an hour I earned in a factory without heat or even bathrooms was more than I could earn back home.
Five years later, Hurricane Mitch destroyed Honduras, making it impossible for me to return. The only way I could take care of my family was to stay in the US and send money back to them. They say when one door closes, another opens and, along with the devastation, came an opportunity to transform my life for the better.
Because damage from the storm was so bad — over 7,000 dead, with roads, access to water and electricity wrecked for most of the country — the United States gave people from Honduras living here access to Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS. That allowed me stay in the country with legal status.
For me and my family, this program made a world of difference.
When I received TPS, I was able to get a job with a good salary and benefits. I was able to buy a car and open a bank account. I was able to pay to build two houses for my mother and kids in Honduras, and pay for college for two of my kids.
This program has allowed me and more than 57,000 other Hondurans to live and work legally in the U.S., to have families and build good lives here. Right now, TPS covers more than 320,000 people from 10 countries where environmental disaster or armed conflict or other extraordinary circumstances would place them in danger if they had to return. TPS is an example of America’s best values — protecting people from danger and injustice.
But the Department of Homeland Security and President Trump have indicated they want to end the program. That would be cruel and it would hurt not just families like mine, but many communities across the country where TPS holders have settled for decades, where they own homes and businesses and have raised their kids.
The Department of Homeland Security is expected to decide what will happen to people from Honduras and Nicaragua by November 6, and other countries in the weeks to follow.
I am terrified they will decide to end the program. My family is scared, too. Losing TPS would undo two decades of my life in the United States. And it would hurt my family in Honduras. My 80-year-old mother has the beginnings of Parkinson’s and requires more medical care by the day. My brother also has a chronic illness, and requires expensive medications daily to stay alive. My daughter is not working right now so I help support her and her two young children.
Losing legal permission to live and work in the US would also mean that I, like other Hondurans, would have to return to a country where organized crime operates with impunity to terrorize people in all social classes, and where the economy cannot sustain the people there.
TPS holders like me are among the most intensely vetted of immigrants in this country. Every 18 months, we go through extensive background checks and pay a hefty fee to renew TPS. I have been happy to do so, and would be happy to do it again. TPS has allowed me to have a good life, one that is impossible for me without it.
I hope that President Trump and officials in DHS make a decision that shows they understand how much we bring to this country, and how harmful it would be to force us to leave, not just for our families in our home countries but for the communities here we have made stable and prosperous.
I also hope that Congress will help. I went with other TPS holders and allies to Washington last month to talk to Congress members about introducing laws that will help us keep our right to live and work in the U.S. legally and honestly. Already, New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez and Florida Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have introduced bills that would do that.
The United States has always been the land of opportunity, and it’s given me and my family a great deal, just as it has to hundreds of thousands of other TPS holders and millions of immigrants. But by turning against people like me, I’m afraid this country may lose that tradition, which will be a terrible loss not just for me but for us all.
Canales lives and works on Staten Island.
![In a narrow vote this week, the Federal Trade Commission approved a rule that will ban the vast majority of noncompete clauses by U.S. employers, which have long prevented workers from switching jobs or setting out on their own. In doing so, the agency did its duty to protect American economic dynamism and opportunity, nothing less, nothing more. We hope that’s the clear conclusion of the courts that will now rule on a lawsuit being brought by the Chamber of Commerce, which has strenuously supported this anticompetitive practice. Of the arguments that the business group and other opponents have rolled […]](https://www.nydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1820955015.jpg?w=490 "In a narrow vote this week, the Federal Trade Commission approved a rule that will ban the vast majority of noncompete clauses by U.S. employers, which have long prevented workers from switching jobs or setting out on their own. In doing so, the agency did its duty to protect American economic dynamism and opportunity, nothing less, nothing more. We hope that’s the clear conclusion of the courts that will now rule on a lawsuit being brought by the Chamber of Commerce, which has strenuously supported this anticompetitive practice. Of the arguments that the business group and other opponents have rolled […]")
